The Smith of Arden, or Thorin Oakenshield and the Horseman's Word
by xahra99
Summary: Thorin Oakenshield knows the Horseman's Word.


_The Smith of Arden, or, _

_How Thorin Oakenshield used the Horseman's Word to Shoe the Lord's Black Stallion._

A Hobbit (movie)/Discworld fan fiction.

With apologies to Terry Pratchett an Tolkien.

Despite the rumours, the streets of Erebor had not been paved with gold.

It would have been far too soft.

The flagstones had been hand-carved from porphyry, black granite, and serpentine; hard stones worth far more than their weight in precious metal. Dwarves liked to work, and their hard work had brought wealth beyond the wildest dreams of anybody who was not of dwarven stock.

Thorin Oakenshield had learned that there was much less gold in the world of men than there had been in Erebor.

"_How _much?" he asked Gloín.

"Three silvers."

"That's not enough. Does nobody in this forsaken place have need of smiths?"

One by one, the dwarves of Thorin's company shook their heads. Only Bombur spoke. "There is _one_ thing."

Thorin sighed. Bombur's plans rarely bore much fruit. "If you know of work, let's hear it."

"There's a horse needs shoeing." Bombur said. "But you won't like it."

Thorin frowned. Bombur was reckoned a skilled smith among dwarves, and by dwarven standards any human blacksmith was a rank amateur at best. "Where is this horse? Could you not shoe it?"

Bombur shuffled his feet. Thorin noticed that Bombur's paunch had shrunk considerably since the company had fled from Erebor. "I tried."

"You did not complete the task?" Thorin's brows drew together in a frown. An unfinished job was an insult to dwarven craftsmen everywhere. Bombur had never been the sharpest pick in the mineshaft, but he was honest. Thorin had never known him to leave a task unfinished. "Why not?"

Bombur looked very miserable. "They say the horse has Elvish blood," he said.

Thorin snorted. "We'll see about that."

As the stable-master of Arden Grange led his lord's stallion from its stable, Thorin had to concede that the horse did indeed have Elvish blood. The stallion reared and plunged, fighting all the way. It was a fine beast, with a hide that gleamed like jet and a silky mane whipped to elf-locks by the breeze. Its hooves hammered sparks from the cobblestones. One shoe broke loose and spun across the stable yard. The human servants ducked. The dwarves did not.

Thorin wondered why any man would choose to shoe such a beast. The horse's hooves alone were powerful enough to crack even a dwarven skull-and Thorin's folk had hard heads indeed. He shrugged. In his opinion shoeing this stallion was akin to starting a knife-fight by handing his opponent an axe, but nobody yet had asked for his opinion. In these days, few humans did.

The stable-master tied the horse to an iron ring fixed to the wall with much cursing and no little effort. Thorin stroked his beard and took a good look at the stallion.

The steward of the Grange looked down at Thorin, and then further down. "You've seen the beast. You think that you can do it?"

Thorin drew himself up to his full height. He gave the steward a withering glare borrowed from better days; a look that said_ I am a thousand times more worthy than the petty local lord you serve_. "I know I can," he said.

"I'll pay you only when the work is done," the steward said. He gave a little sniff to indicate that he was not impressed by Thorin's airs. "The fee is twenty silvers. Assuming you survive."

Thorin nodded. "I shall need a forge," he said, gauging the size of the stallion's hooves as he spoke. "Bofur, bring the blanks from the wagon."

The dwarves hurried to obey.

The humans did not. Thorin had to wait a full half-hour before the forge he had requested was hot enough to use. He gazed upon his company and thought only of how much they had lost. In Erebor, the dwarves had been kings beneath the Lonely Mountain. They had worn rings of rare and precious stones upon their fingers and decorated their beards with beads of hammered bronze. Now their boots were stained with a thousand miles of dust, their jewels lost or pawned; their mountain gone.

_And I am reduced to prostituting the skills of my fathers_, Thorin thought. _How far I have fallen._

Thorin heated the horseshoe blanks in the coals and worked them into a rough outline of the black stallion's soup-plate hooves. It was crude apprentice work, and an insult to Thorin's skills. But it was a tradition of the dwarves that one craftsman worked a task from start to end, and Thorin had his pride, if nothing else.

When the shoes were ready he beckoned the stable-master over. "I must take the horse into the smithy alone. Nobody must enter. No one. Do you understand?"

The stable-master nodded. "I do," he said. "But I don't like it. This isn't dwarven magic, is it?"

Thorin shook his head. "No magic. Do you want the horse shod or not?"

The stable-master thought about his options for a few moments while the stallion stamped its feet and began to chew through its tether. "Yes," he said after a while. "I reckon I do."

Thorin nodded. He walked over to the horse and untied its tether. The stallion snapped at him with teeth the size and shape of piano keys. Thorin took a firmer hold upon the stallion's bridle and led the horse into the forge. He closed and bolted the forge door behind him.

The stallion whinnied and kicked a hole into the door. Thorin grasped the tether and dragged the horse's head down, fighting all the way. He put his mouth against the stallion's flattened ear and whispered a single sentence in the mystical _khuzdul _language of Durin's folk.

The stallion shivered, whinnied, and stood stock still.

It did not move as Thorin lifted its feet one by one. He removed the three remaining shoes with pincers, examined them, frowned, and tossed the worn shoes into the corner of the forge. Then he rasped the stallion's hooves, heated the new horseshoes and checked the fit. The familiar scent of burning horn stung his nostrils as he plunged the shoes into a bucket before nailing them into place.

The entire household of Arden Grange was gathered when Thorin walked the stallion from the forge. The black horse walked at Thorin's side as quietly as a lamb. Its new shoes twinkled in the sunshine.

Thorin put the end of the tether into the stunned stable-master's hand and said "Twenty silvers, please."

The steward, mouth agape, dropped a bag of coins in Thorin's hand. Thorin hid the purse inside his greatcoat, summoned the other dwarves, and left the grange behind him.

As the company made their way back to the camp old Balin sidled up to Thorin and asked him quietly "Now just how did you do that, lad?"

Thorin frowned, but the old dwarf continued unabashed. "Bombur says he couldn't get near the creature. You may be our King-in-exile but you're no master-smith. What's your secret?"

"Horseman's word," said Thorin.

Which is?

"Cross me, my lad, and I'll have your balls upon my anvil."

Balin laughed. "Aye," he said, "that'll work, every time."

Thorin's company of dwarves travelled ever on, and came at last to the Bag End hobbit-hole. The grange at Arden never again hired a dwarven smith. Its lord would not hear of such a thing. The shoes lasted long enough, he said, but his stallion had never been the same again.

_The End._

Author's Note: This fic is pure Hobbit movieverse, but leans heavily upon a trope of Pratchett's. Hence the crossover. Both authors have really distinctive styles and I haven't attempted to copy them.  
This fic sprang directly from sigridhr's most excellent Thorin smutfic Experience. I was on my way to work after reading the fic and wondering if and how Thorin would shoe a horse (don't judge me, it's a long commute) and then I suddenly thought FUCK YEAH THORIN OAKENSHIELD KNOWS THE HORSEMAN'S WORD.  
Now The Horseman's Word is mentioned in Terry Pratchett's book Lords and Ladies, where Nanny Ogg's son Jason is a smith who can shoe anything that is brought to him on the condition that he shoes anything that is brought to him (horses, unicorns, an ant) and who knows the mythical Horseman's Word that allows him to control the most unmanageable stallion.  
The Horseman's Word in Discworld involves hammers and dire threats to certain tender parts of a stallion's anatomy. It was also a real tradition and was a secret society of ploughmen and blacksmiths back in the day where men were men and horses were large and often extremely angry. Interestingly enough, it taught the practitioners magical words that allowed them to control not just horses but also women). This may do something to explain Thorin's talents with women in Experience.


End file.
